


Your Only Hope

by MasterHuntressJessBlack



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2019-12-26 19:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18288497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterHuntressJessBlack/pseuds/MasterHuntressJessBlack
Summary: Hope county Montana, 2018. The cult known as Eden's Gate takes over the small county. Here we learn more about the infamous gun for hire Jenny Lynn Armatti and how her life led up to this moment.





	1. Rye Family Barbecue

She was kind of in shock she had even received an invite to the Ryes’ barbecue. It mainly shocked her because she hadn’t talked to either Kim or Nick in an extremely long time, but she decided to go anyway. What could it hurt? In fact, she saw “bring your own beer and food” she was already in.

She brushed her long dirty blonde hair and threw on her ripped jeans and t-shirt before doing her normal makeup routine. Jenny finished getting ready before looking in the mirror and turning to walk out of her bathroom. She made her way into the kitchen, grabbing a box full of alcohol and premade cake. 

There was a knock at her door, she answered it and behind the door was the Sheriff. Jenny’s voice rang out, “Oh hi Earl! You’re a bit earlier than expected, but it’s no problem. I just finished getting ready,” She laughed. “I came earlier to make sure you didn’t start drinking early but by the looks of things you already did. I can see why you asked me to drive you tonight,” He responded. She feigns a look of shock, “Wow. Gee thanks Sheriff,” she locked the door and stepped out while beginning to close the door, “After you.”

Jenny opened the door to the Sheriffs truck and began to adjust herself inside.  
“Thanks again for being my DD tonight. I really appreciate it.”  
“I’m glad to do it, if it keeps you from continuously doing dumb shit.”  
“I do not ‘continuously’ keep doing dumb shit, I occasionally do dumb shit.”  
The sheriff glanced over at her while starting the truck and gave her a disapproving look while shaking his head.

“Sure. Just like I ‘occasionally’ arrested you as a kid.” Jenny made a face and shook her head as they started driving forward towards the Ryes’ home.

Once they arrived both got out of the truck and walked in unison up to one of the many tables that had food. They both placed the food and alcohol where they needed to be before Nick and Kim came up to them to say hello. Jenny hated the small talk but went along with it so she didn’t end up being reprimanded by the Sheriff once the Ryes’ walked away. Earl had been like a father figure for her since her real dad never tried when she was young.

Jenny awkwardly stood there and swallowed, “So, uh, Nice place you got here Nick.”

“Yeah, thanks, my grandfather built it.” The air felt incredibly awkward for Jenny and she felt like everybody else could also feel it. The sheriff kept the conversation going before Adelaide Drubman walked up to her, grabbed her arm, and pulled Jenny with her. 

“Hope ya don’t mind I’m stealing Miss Jenny away for a little while. But don’t you worry I’ll bring her back in one piece!”

Once they got a good distance away Jenny looked over at Adelaide.  
“Oh thank god you came along. It was getting a little too awkward for my liking, Addy.” Adelaide chuckled at her nickname, “Ah hunny, you looked like you needed savin’ over there. But don’t you worry, I’ll help make you a little bit friendlier.” Jenny gave Adelaide a confused look but saw where she was being dragged, and it was toward the alcohol. “Ooh, I like where this is going Addy! I should trust you more often!”

 

Their drinking started off with a bang and just as quickly as they started, they got plastered. They did shot after shot after shot of whiskey and it became very apparent that Jenny needed to stop just three hours into the barbecue. Adelaide had slowed down an hour before Jenny did and kept gently pushing her into doing a few more shots because, “Jenny’s a hoot when she’s drunk,” and she really was a fun drunk…usually.

Jenny began to slow down and eventually went to stand, which was mistake number one. The last of the alcohol hit her like a ton of bricks and caused her to wobble while walking. Mistake number two was when Adelaide decided to let Jenny go off on her own and walk around the party. Finally mistake number three was the Sheriff not coming to find Jenny after seeing Adelaide take her off to get drinks and even letting them go off alone. This whole evening was a recipe for disaster and it was only going to get worse.

As the night went on, Jenny walked around hitting on any person in site. She made her rounds and walked up to groups of people and hit on everyone in said group. They’d laugh it off and tell her that they weren’t interested or that they were taken already. She even made her way up to Nick and Kim and proceeded to hit on them both at the same time. They laughed and shrugged it off as “Jenny being way to fucking drunk for her own good.”

Eventually she went through everyone or at least she thought she made it through everyone and that’s when she spotted him. Talking to the Sheriff was, Pastor Jerome Jeffries. She always found him attractive and had a small crush on the man, more so now than ever. She went and took a double shot of tequila and decided it was time to try her luck on that poor man.

She made her way up to him and interrupted the previously started conversation before mumbling something that neither man could figure out what she had said. She kept going and the Pastor would laugh and just nod at her. The last “statement” she made she laughed at herself before the Sheriff looked over at the Pastor. 

“I’m very sorry about her, I should’ve never let her go off with Adelaide earlier and I think it’s time to cut her off and take her home.” “No harm in that, have a nice evening you two,” and with that said Jerome walked off.

Jenny went to follow Jerome and the Sheriff stopped her.  
“Alright, Alright. You’re not going to bother him anymore and I’m taking you home.” Jenny looked at him and defiantly kept trying to get past him. Earl grabbed her arms and began pulling her toward the truck while she kept trying to make a scene. She flailed about trying to free herself but failed. Eventually he got her in the truck and began to drive her home.

She was asleep when they had arrived because the alcohol finally knocked her out and she passed out. He woke her and helped her walk up her stairs, into her house but before entering she vomited on her shoes and the sheriff knew that he’d have to help her more now than he originally anticipated. But he did it and eventually left her alone on her couch.

 

When Jenny woke up the next morning feeling extremely hungover. She felt deathly ill and wasn’t able to do much of anything until at least 6 pm that evening. When she felt better she opened her phone and saw a bunch of messages from people telling her how awful of a flirt she was. Somehow she was invited to the next Rye Barbecue. Jenny decided she’d take it easy on the alcohol next time.


	2. The past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little bit of Jenny and Sharky's past brought to light.

The sound of keys jingling in front of his face brought Sharky out of his trance. He had zoned out a bit while sitting on the front porch of his parents mobile home and when he came to Jenny was in front of him holding keys in front of his face.   
“Stole my dad’s truck keys. Wanna go for a ride? We got a few hours before he’ll notice. I’ll let you drive if you want.” Sharky perked up at Jenny’s offering to let him drive and this might be his only chance to try before age 16.

“Hell yeah I’ll drive!” He quickly grabbed the keys out of her hands. Before she could say anything he kissed her and when he backed off she had this shocked look on her face.  
“I’ve been waitin’ to do that since your fifteenth birthday party,” He looked at her a bit sheepishly. She still stood there in shock for a moment before she got her bearings again.   
“I uh, never kissed anyone before,” she took a moment to catch her breath again, “Wait? You wanted to kiss me since my birthday??”  
“Well if it helps I also wanted to date you but you never seemed interested.”

“We’ll talk about this in the truck. We’re burning up daylight and my dad could wake up at any minute.” Jenny pushed Sharky towards the truck and they both got in.   
“Now don’t do anything fucking stupid okay? The truck needs to stay in one piece at least for today. Got it?” Sharky gave a mock salute towards her and started the truck up. He crept forward slowly as he figured out how to work the vehicle. By the time they hit the main road Sharky was a natural, well almost. 

They began driving up and down side roads having a blast. Sharky cranked up the music and they both belted out the lyrics to everything that played on the radio. Eventually they got to the river and decided to go swimming in their underwear. They jumped in and began splashing each other. At one point Sharky pretended to drown and stayed under the water. He was under the water for longer than Jenny had liked and she began to frantically call out his name. Unbeknownst to Jenny, he had crept up behind her and dragged her back under with him.

When they had finished swimming they went back to shore and laid out in the sun. They had decided to wait and get dry before getting back into their normal clothes again. It was quiet and they stayed next to each other for a while before Jenny spoke again. “Sharky? Do you think we can just leave? Like leave to go somewhere else and never come back? I think that’d be nice.”   
“Why do you wanna leave? It’s nice here, well sometimes. But why would you wanna leave? If you left we probably couldn’t hang out everyday, or nothin’ like that.”

She sighed and rubbed her face before sitting up. She looked down at him and then back out towards the river.   
“Well, we can leave together. Don’t have to come back or nothing. It’d be an adventure for two best friends. You’re pretty okay at driving and I stole my dad’s wallet. We could make a life somewhere else.” 

It was Sharky’s turn to sit up and he gave her a skeptical look.   
"I can’t though. I got family here and I can’t see me livin’ anywhere else to be honest. I know your dad ain’t the best but a few more years and you can leave that house forever. I just don’t want my best friend in the whole world to leave me! Seriously please don’t leave me.” He grabbed her and gave her a hug just to try and change her mind. She eventually gave in and told him she wouldn’t leave just yet.

They both went and changed back into their normal clothes once they were dry and got back into the truck. It was Jenny’s turn to drive and she wasn’t half bad, if only she didn’t slam the breaks everytime she went a little too fast. Everything was going smoothly and it was only around two in the afternoon at this point, they had only been out for about 5 hours. She decided to go to the 8-bit pizza bar for lunch. She pulled into the parking lot and did a really bad job at parking. 

“You sure this is okay? You know since it’s your dad’s wallet? That you stole?”   
Jenny got out of the truck as and looked up at Sharky and gave him a shrug.  
“Maybe, maybe not? My dad owes me money anyways, so might as well spend it on pizza and arcade games.” Sharky thought it over a minute before saying, “Well I guess that makes sense,” and got out to follow her inside. 

They spent several hours and god knows how much money on food and games. During the last game Jenny was going for a high score and Sharky interrupted her flow.   
“You sure you’re gonna not leave me? I don’t mean to bring it up again but I’m just nervous that you’ll leave me. You’re like my only best friend.” Jenny sighed as her character died and ‘game over’ popped up on screen.   
“Sharky, I pinky promise that I’ll never leave so long as I live.” They crossed pinkies.

They began to head out again and Sharky took charge of driving. They were on the other side of Hope County because Jenny wanted to take the long way home.   
“Sorry I scared you earlier with all that talk about leaving. I just got antsy and had the urge to leave.” Sharky nodded at her and began to speed up a bit, trying to show off his driving skills.   
“You know what Sharky? About what you said earlier? I’ll be your girlfriend.”

As soon as the word ‘girlfriend’ registered in Sharky’s mind, he became extremely happy beginning to speed up and slightly lost control of the truck. As soon as he regained control, the worst thing occurred and flashing lights and sirens came up behind them. Sharky swore under his breath and Jenny turned around to see how close the cop car was.

“Sharky if you pull over now we can make a run for it out of my door and into the woods. They can’t find us if we split up.” He looked at her like she was crazy but it was the only way out of avoiding getting caught. So that’s exactly what he did. They waited in the truck for the officer to also pull over before making a run for it.

They waited for the perfect time to run and they did. They bolted for the woods while the officer shouted at them to freeze before trying to chase them. Sharky was much faster than Jenny was and got much further ahead before changing course and going towards the left leaving Jenny behind to lose the officer. ‘Can’t be too hard, I’m already way ahead of him.’

She veered to the right and kept going. Jenny was running out of breath and this damn officer wouldn’t get off of her tail. She kept thinking of different ways to lose the cop and wasn’t paying much attention before she tripped over a tree root and fell.  
“FUCK!”. The cop walked up to Jenny and cuffed her right there. He picked her up and basically dragged her back to his vehicle before driving her back to the station.

She was forced inside the building and of course the first person she made eye contact with was Whitehorse. She immediately looked away and back down at the floor. ‘I’m so fucked. The Sheriff is gonna kill me. I promised I wouldn’t get arrested again.’ Whitehorse’s voice spoke up.  
“I’ll take it from here,” and he took Jenny to his office.

He un-cuffed her and made her sit down in front of his desk, she looked down because she was too afraid to see the look of disappointment on his face again. He raised his voice as he spoke.  
“Now what the hell did you do this time?” Jenny remained quiet, not wanting to answer. Whitehorse crossed his arms and continued to look at her, just waiting for her to answer, no matter how long it took.   
“We can sit here all day. I don’t have plans for tonight. So you can either answer my damn question or we’ll stay here until you do.”

It took 20 minutes of sitting there for Jenny to feel uncomfortable, she looked everywhere but at the Sheriff before she answered his question.  
“I’m real sorry. I know I promised you but I didn’t want to stay at home anymore so I tried to drive away.” The look on the Sheriffs face softened when he heard her say that.  
“Well you did a shit job at it. You were driving the wrong way I hope you know.”

Jenny laughed a little at that, “Yeah I know, couldn’t bring myself to leave just yet I guess.”   
“Who was the other person in the car?” Jenny stiffened at that. She couldn’t throw Sharky under the bus since he was the only one to actually escape. Jenny shook her head.   
”No one was Sheriff. It was just me. I stole my dad’s truck and wallet.” The Sheriff gave her a look of doubt.

“Now I wasn’t there so I don’t know if there was anybody else there or not. So I’m letting you off on a warning this time. Last one you got. I’m not going to keep doing this for you. I’m calling your dad and taking you home.” Jenny sighed and slouched in her chair. She really didn’t wanna go home now.   
Everything went by too quick for her liking and she was taken home and dropped off outside of her house by the Sheriff himself. Before she got out the Sheriff looked at her.  
"Everything alright at home?"   
"Yeah fine," she didn't look him in the eyes and she immediately went inside, not wanting to look at the only person who actually cared about her.

She heard the vehicle pull away before she opened the door and braced herself for whatever her awful father had in store for her today. Little did she know that this would be the last time she would have to deal with him and his anger issues, the last time that she’d have to crawl out of her window and in through Sharky’s to avoid him, the last time she’d have to see the inside of that disgusting trailer before he passed away and had to move in with her grandparents.


	3. College days are over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jenny comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is building up to when the game begins but there's still some mini-stories I'd like to yeet in there before we get that far. Here we have a 21 year old Jenny fresh out of college and full of anxiety.

It had been several years since Jenny had been sent away. She came back and only became nervous when she returned to her grandparents' empty house. They'd both passed away only a year prior and had left the place to her so obviously her only choice was to take it. Nearby the Spread Eagle on the outskirts of Falls End is where the small home was located. She had been quickly welcomed back by the Fairgrave clan. Jenny quickly found herself back into the swing of things. She became a bartender and life was good. In walked the Sheriff, the world stopped for a moment, everything moved in slow motion. He sat down.

The young woman stared at him for a moment before he looked over at her with a blank face. She moved at a snail's pace towards him. "Hey there Sheriff," she started off slowly while messing with her long newly dyed hair. The sheriff let out a breath, "you're a brunette now? Never thought I'd see the day," he then gave a small smile, "so what happened to the whole college thing? Thought you said you were out there bettering yourself?" "Yeaaaah about that… Hope County was calling my name and I couldn't say no. I got homesick and came back for the house." The sheriff gave her a look and paused, "sit down and grab us both a shot. I think we both need one." She agreed happily and sat down to play catchup. They spent a few hours getting up to date on everything in each other's lives.

The sheriff then took a swig of beer before speaking, "oh and that boyfriend of yours is nothin' but trouble. I don't get what you see in him." Jenny did a double take, swallowing thickly as she spoke, "Boyfriend?” she asked visibly confused, “You mean Sharky? I haven’t talked to him since before I left. I haven’t told him I’m even back yet…” she looked away when Whitehorse gave her the look, the disappointed dad look.

“Well at some point you’re gonna have to talk to him, I’m gettin’ real sick of having to go up to that damn trailer park for noise complaints. He will randomly start blasting his abba music when he’s upset. You kept him under control… Mostly. If I have to call up the fire department again I swear.” Jenny let out a laugh, “Well Earl let’s have one for the road, it’s closing time,” she poured out two shots, “To Hope County!”

Jenny waved to the sheriff as he pulled out and drove off. She walked the short distance back to her place with her arms wrapped around her. The conversation still bubbling around in her head, ‘sharky’. She couldn’t bring herself to talk to him again, not after how she broke his heart. She unlocks the door and slams it shut, locking it and going straight to her kitchen. She grabbed whatever bottle of liquor that was closest and drank. Her heart was pounding as she began to sob.

It was a bad habit of hers, drinking when she felt the slightest bit upset, but it was the only thing that kept her out of her own head. It all started during her college days when she was stressed and continued until she dropped out. Her anxiety tripled the day she came back and kept multiplying the longer she was in town. She didn’t understand why it had gotten so bad, ‘Maybe I should’ve stayed away. Maybe I should just go back.’ She felt her heart beating as she slammed her fists into the countertop, her mind screamed at her to stop until she was dizzy. She passed out.

She woke up on the floor tear-stained and reeking of alcohol again, “Fuck me.” She steadied herself as she stood up. Her head began to pound as she looked at the clock in front of her. She had only enough time to get ready for her next shift at the Spread Eagle. “I can’t keep doing this anymore.” She cleaned up and got herself looking halfway decent stopping at a mirror, “Get through this and you can get through anything.” She had finally decided to talk to Sharky once her shift ended so long as she wasn’t shit faced by then. She skirted around the subject for the next few weeks, weeks turned into months, months into years. She went out of her way to avoid him but eventually she had moved on.


End file.
